Each document, reference, patent application or patent cited in this text is expressly incorporated herein in their entirety by reference, which means that it should be read and considered by the reader as part of this text. That the document, reference, patent application, or patent cited in this text is not repeated in this text is merely for reasons of conciseness.
The following discussion of the background to the invention is intended to facilitate an understanding of the present invention only. It should be appreciated that the discussion is not an acknowledgment or admission that any of the material referred to was published, known or part of the common general knowledge of the person skilled in the art in any jurisdiction as at the priority date of the invention.
When travelling by airplane for example, a traveler's luggage is susceptible to being misplaced or lost by the airline baggage handlers. Retrieval of baggage can be troublesome and take days, weeks, even months and in some cases the luggage may never be found at all. This can be very stressful for the person travelling, and sometimes items within the luggage cannot be replaced, or are extremely valuable.
Tracking and locating systems and devices for articles exist. Some systems and devices initiate tracking when a tracking sensor is set off by movement and are therefore limited to having some form of movement to initiate the tracking. Other tracking devices are too large/heavy—preventing them from use with smaller items. Also many of the devices used require lots of power as they are constantly emitting signals, again making them impractical in real life situations were extended battery life is a necessity.
Systems and methods have been disclosed to facilitate the tracking of items with the use of radio frequency identification (RFID). However these are only applicable when monitoring items over a limited radius, and are susceptible to electromagnetic interference.